


a soul that's changing its shape

by grim_lupine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Body Worship, Bondage, Established Relationship, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Post-Ragnarok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 23:03:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: Loki watches Thor until he comes awake on his own — the lashes of his one eye fluttering open, mouth twitching as his breathing speeds up. A dart of confusion crosses his face as he tries to move his arms from either side of his head, and realizes that he can't.“Loki,” Thor says immediately; the only name that could spring to his lips, waking like this. “Loki.”





	a soul that's changing its shape

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to pageleaf for putting up with vague questions like "is loki too soft???" and "what about the flow????"

If Thor were to ask Loki what he looks like asleep, Loki would tell him he drools, and smacks his lips, and mumbles incoherently. 

The truth is, his brother is disturbingly lovely: quiet in sleep as he isn't when awake, parted lips and flushed cheeks and a strong, golden profile catching and holding Loki’s eye. Loki watches him for long moments, thrilling in his unsuspecting repose. Then he binds Thor carefully, winding ropes of seidr around and around his wrists and forearms. Stretched out on his stomach, Thor doesn't stir, even when Loki pulls his arms up further to bind them to the head of the bed. 

Finished with his work, Loki resumes watching Thor with greedy eyes, content to get his fill as he can't when Thor is awake and moving. If Thor won't give him the time for this, Loki will just have to take it himself. 

Loki watches Thor until he comes awake on his own — the lashes of his one eye fluttering open, mouth twitching as his breathing speeds up. A dart of confusion crosses his face as he tries to move his arms from either side of his head, and realizes that he can't. 

“Loki,” Thor says immediately; the only name that could spring to his lips, waking like this. “ _Loki_.” 

“Shhh,” Loki says, and puts a hand on Thor’s back. Slowly, he moves it up the strong plane of it, palming the jutting bone of Thor’s shoulderblade, the bunching muscles of his shoulders. Thor’s eye roves around, finding Loki and skating right over him. Like this, invisible to Thor’s eye, Loki can see _everything_ on his face — as if Thor’s mind knows that Loki is there, but without seeing him, Thor’s body can't remember enough to control his expressions and the tale his body tells. 

“Loki,” Thor says again, breath hitching. “I don't have time for this right now.”

“Don't you?” Loki says thoughtfully. He runs the pad of one finger down the back of Thor’s neck and watches the skin prickle in his wake. 

“I _don't_ ,” Thor says, the muscles of his arms bulging impossibly as he attempts to pull free again. “There's too much — ”

“To do, yes, I know,” Loki finishes. He pushes his thumb up through Thor’s hair, ruffling it the wrong way. A tremor ripples through Thor from head to toe. “So many decisions to make, so many people to help. You are king, after all.” 

Thor says nothing. Loki watches him for a moment with interest to see if he might, but it seems he intends to wait this out to see where Loki is going. 

So Loki bends his head and puts his mouth to Thor’s ear.

“You are not my king,” Loki says, very softly. 

Thor’s mouth twists; on his face Loki sees a strong flash of hurt, hurriedly tucked away. 

“I suppose you’d like the job back?” Thor says sardonically. “You were doing it so well.”

Loki grips the back of Thor’s neck and tightens, nearly hard enough to pierce the skin with his fingernails. “You are not my _king_ ,” he hisses, mouth still pressed to Thor’s ear. “You are my _brother_.”

Surprise is sweet on Thor’s face, a little-boy, lost look. His fisted hands curl open again. 

“You're running around proving yourself whole and clear-headed and in charge,” Loki says. “Looking after everyone; looking after me. I'll have none of that, thank you very much.”

“Then what do you _want_ ,” Thor says.

“The truth,” Loki tells him.

Thor laughs — mirthful, tinged with disbelief.   
“You?” he says, still laughing. “ _You_ want the truth from me?” 

“Yes,” Loki says unapologetically. 

Loki is made of lies to his bones; it's the language his tongue finds before all else. But from Thor, Loki has always wanted his truths: the sweet ones, yes, but the ugly ones most of all. The fears and doubts and tiny cruelties that prove him imperfect and real, someone Loki can touch. 

“You don't trust me anymore, not fully,” Loki says simply, sliding his hand between the pillow and Thor until he's cupping Thor’s throat lightly. They both know how easy it would be to tighten his grip and choke. “Frankly, it's the smartest thing you've ever done. But I'm asking it of you all the same.”

Thor swallows into Loki’s hand. He's rigid, tensed from head to toe. But he doesn't move. 

“ _Trust_ me,” Loki says quietly. “Trust me for one day.”

Through luck, for Loki is still invisible to him, Thor finds the exact spot where Loki’s eyes are and holds them, unblinking. Loki doesn't breathe. 

At last, Thor nods. 

 

*

 

Thor sleeps bare-chested, a fact Loki is endlessly thankful for. Loki tugs the rest of his clothing away and drops it over the side of the bed. He leaves himself invisible — he wants to make Thor forget himself entirely, make him plead or moan or whatever other urge might strike, without a care for stifling it in front of Loki. 

Then he takes a moment to look at his brother, bound like a gift, golden and mouth-watering. Loki misses his hair, but the close cut sharpens his profile, makes him look as dangerous as he is. Loki can see the tension in Thor’s curling fists and his thighs; perversely, it makes him want Thor more, that he has reservations but is doing as Loki asked anyway. _Because_ he asked it.

But Loki’s aim today is not to cause tension; rather the opposite. He leans and reaches into the side table for the vial of oil he placed there, uncorking it with a pop. 

Thor’s face is determinedly smooth; perhaps he expects Loki to have him with no preamble. Hopefully he knows better than to expect anything at all. 

Loki pools the oil between his hands and rubs them together to warm them, then smooths his hands down Thor’s back. When he reaches the dip of his lower back, he digs in hard with the base of his palms, and releases.

Thor tenses up — and then goes boneless, properly relaxed for the first time since he awoke. 

They’ve done this many times before; part and parcel of learning how to fight is learning how to heal the aches and wounds that come about because of it. Thor has always had the greater strength for it, but Loki’s hands are strong enough, and he has the knack. 

Loki finds and releases knot after knot of tension. Thor’s shoulders are like rock beneath his hands, and Loki spends several minutes there, digging in so hard even Thor can’t contain a hiss, before more gently rubbing away the ache. When Loki presses his thumbs down the sides of Thor’s neck, feeling the give of muscle, Thor lets out a little sigh, steeped in relief. He turns his head on the pillow to the other side. Now Loki can see the cavern of his missing eye as he works. It makes him grit his teeth around a surge of anger, and his hands tighten on Thor’s shoulders. If Hela were here, he could skin her very slowly, with a very small knife, and enjoy it. 

Thor tenses slightly, and moves to turn his head back the other way. 

“Don’t be a fool,” Loki says shortly. He puts his hand over the socket; he’s already healed the wound of its rawness and made sure to prevent any infection, but it must ache, still. A wound like this will for a while yet. He draws the pain from it, a sickly whisper he can almost hear, and heals some of the bruising while he’s at it. 

“I’m told I can’t help it,” Thor says, smiling wryly.

“Well, we all have our trials to bear,” Loki says, pouring more oil into his hands. 

“And am I yours?” Thor says, a flirting undertone in his voice.

“ _Yes_ ,” Loki says with feeling, and starts working on Thor’s legs. Thor’s calves are tough as iron; when Loki works the tension from them, he finds it’s as if he’s broken a spell — Thor doesn’t hold himself back any longer, but sighs and lets out little hitching breaths that make Loki’s mouth go dry. He doesn’t even _mean_ to do it, the oblivious fool. When Thor is in the mood to flirt and seduce, he could talk the clothes off Loki even in the midst of his foulest temper; but when Thor is like this, pliant and unabashedly vocal in his pleasure, he doesn’t even know the effect he has. 

Loki moves up Thor’s thighs, thick as the limbs of a tree. He re-oils his hands once more and digs into the meat of Thor’s ass — he knows well the tense pain that can come at the sides where it meets the hips, or the top where it dips into the lower back. And the way Thor hums and shifts beneath him is no small draw. 

Loki tries, and finds he can’t help himself: he parts the globes of Thor’s ass and rubs his thumb firmly down the crease, teasing the give of Thor’s hole. He’s so well oiled, he could push right in. 

Thor rumbles low in his chest, a vibrating sound that makes Loki flush with heat. 

He’s out of oil. Loki tosses the empty vial aside, and gets up to search for another one.

“Loki?” Thor says the instant Loki moves; there’s a snap in his voice that sounds almost like anger, but Loki can hear the wavering beneath it, and curses himself for a fool. 

Of all the things Thor fears from him, more than his betrayal or his mockery, Loki thinks his absence might cut the deepest. 

“I’m here,” Loki says immediately, and puts his hand back on Thor’s shoulder. He reaches out with the other hand and blindly calls the oil to it. 

Thor holds his breath — and releases it, the bow of his body softening back down into the bed. He opens his mouth to apologize, judging by the shamefaced look he wears, but Loki puts his finger to Thor’s lips to still his tongue. 

“Don’t,” Loki says. He urges Thor onto his back, giving his arms enough slack to do so, and then finds himself hovering distractedly at the vision his brother makes: the mountainous curves of his arms bound above his head, the unabashed splay of his thighs revealing his half-hard cock in a thatch of golden hair. Thor is so broad Loki could dash himself to pieces on the cliff of his chest. An eternity spent sucking bruises down the cut of his hips wouldn’t be long enough. 

“Let me see you,” Thor says; there is a crooning sigh shot through his voice, somewhere between pleading and cajoling. “I know what you want from me; I won’t hide. Let me _see_ you.”

Loki straddles Thor’s waist, only just barely containing the urge to rub himself off against Thor’s sweat-gleaming belly and chest. Thor’s voice is ever Loki’s undoing; it rumbles low when he’s aroused, but it’s still _sweet_ , as if the silver tongue is his to claim. 

“Very well,” Loki says, and drops his cloak. Thor catches and holds his gaze immediately, his one eye a bright electric blue Loki can’t look away from. Thor looks him over slowly, down to his straining cock and back up to his face, the weight of his gaze a near-physical thing. Then he smiles faintly and tips his head back against the pillow, baring his throat — a deliberate gesture of surrender. 

Loki’s fingers fumble and nearly drop the second vial of oil. He curses Thor viciously under his breath. Thor’s laughter is almost silent, a vibration in his chest Loki can feel between his thighs.

Loki slicks his hands and slides them up the slope of Thor’s shoulders, oiling the jut of his collarbone until it gleams. Carefully, he presses his fingertips to Thor’s temples in circles, uses his thumbs to loosen the muscles at the corners of Thor’s jaw. A night of clenched teeth and dreaming will leave its mark. 

Loki has worked most of the aches and knots of stress from Thor’s body; now, he touches for the pleasure of it alone. He curls the fingers of both hands and slides them down Thor’s corded forearms, feeling the raised rivers of veins and the rapid widening of his limbs. He puts both thumbs in the furred hollows of Thor’s underarms, lifting an eyebrow playfully. 

Thor lifts one in response, mouth pursed in amusement. _Do your worst_ , his face says clearly. He remains in his boneless sprawl, eye bright and nearly placid; Loki feels suddenly the weight of his trust, given for at least this one day, as Loki has asked. When Thor decides to give himself over, he does it as he does everything else: wholeheartedly, uncompromisingly, without looking back. 

Loki decides against tormenting him; like that, at least. Instead he draws his fingernails down Thor’s chest to his nipples, and spends several minutes teasing and stroking them to a rosy pink tautness. Thor holds nothing back, as promised: he squirms and moans and curses Loki’s name, and pulls at the bindings around his wrists so Loki may see the captured straining of his arms. Loki paints the hollow of Thor’s throat and laps it up, heedless of the taste of the oil as it clings to his tongue, caring only for the way Thor pants for breath open-mouthed in response. 

With his thumb, Loki slicks Thor’s mouth and watches the pink shine of it, hungry-eyed. Thor’s tongue darts out briefly to touch his upper lip with its tip, before it retreats back into his mouth. 

“Give us a kiss?” Loki says archly, tucking his hair behind his ears, watching Thor’s eye follow his hand. 

Thor actually forgets himself for a moment and strains up toward Loki in his eagerness, snarling as he is pulled back down toward the bed by the arms. Loki laughs aloud and bends to take Thor’s mouth himself. 

Their lips slide together with oil and then with saliva, as Loki kisses Thor so thoroughly he thinks he might bruise himself. Thor kisses back with no less fervor; they’ve come together so many times over the years, but again and again Loki finds himself surprised at the fury of what they feel, a hunger of the body nearly indistinguishable from a hunger of the belly. At times Loki thinks he could open his mouth and swallow Thor whole, just to keep him within himself. 

“Loki,” Thor says against his mouth. When Loki draws back and looks into Thor’s eye, he sees it burning hot; deep within, he imagines he could even see a wild spark of lightning. “ _Please_ ,” Thor says, as easily as if it costs him nothing to say it, as if he wouldn’t have found shame in it a scant few years before. 

Loki’s ears ring as if he’s been struck like a bell. 

“ _You_ ,” he snarls nonsensically, sliding down Thor’s body so quickly he nearly plants an elbow in his stomach in his haste. “You — ” He shakes his head to clear it, and then muscles Thor’s thighs further apart. 

Thor’s cock is flushed and fully hard. Loki palms the skin-soft iron of it and sucks the head firmly into his mouth. Thor cries out sharply, does it again as Loki pulls off to lick fully up the length of his cock, appetite only whetted by the taste he’s gotten. Like a glutton, he puts his mouth _everywhere_ : the firm length of Thor’s cock, the plump tenderness of his balls. Loki licks the salt-sweat from the creases of Thor’s thighs and then lifts Thor’s hips so he can bury his face between the globes of his ass. He tongues the slowly yielding furl of Thor’s hole until his mouth is dripping wet, and he can press a finger inside the clinging heat of Thor’s body with his saliva and the traces of oil still there.

Thor thrashes like a drowning man, like a fish caught in a net. It’s all Loki can do to contain him, but contain him he does; all told, dying crushed between Thor’s thighs wouldn’t be such a bad way to go in the end, he muses, removing his finger to spear Thor open on the length of his tongue. 

Thor _shouts_ ; a sharp, shocked sound like he’s been wounded. When Loki finally pulls away and lets Thor’s hips down, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he sees Thor staring blindly up at the ceiling, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his hairline down his temples. Asgard’s king is as wrecked as Loki has ever seen him.

Satisfaction burns in Loki’s chest, coal-bright. Right now, he feels as if he could take all his destructive urges into bed with them forevermore, and never tire of it. He slides a thumb up Thor’s cock, catching a drip of fluid and popping it in his mouth. Thor bites his lip so hard it goes white. 

“Say it again,” Loki murmurs. 

Thor meets his eyes. “Please,” he says, an ocean of frustrated need in his voice; and he _waits_ , with a patience Loki didn’t know he even had, for Loki to give him what he wants. It’s so heady a feeling, Loki could get drunk off it. 

Thor manages to hold himself still this time, when Loki bends to suck his cock back down, but Loki can tell it’s a near thing by the trembling in his thighs. It takes only a few pulses before Thor floods his mouth; Loki swallows some of it, and spits the rest neatly onto Thor’s stomach to see the evidence before him. He is filled with the animal urge to spread it all over Thor’s skin, to rub off against Thor’s body and cover him further, until he’s dripping with come; what he wants even more is to cleave Thor’s chest open and climb right inside him, if it were possible. He will have to settle for the next best thing and just fuck him instead. 

Thor opens for him easily, winding his legs around Loki’s back and squeezing. As Loki pushes inside him, he watches Thor’s face closely, hungry for every flutter of his lashes and twitch of his mouth as he shifts to get Loki deeper. 

Loki doesn’t fuck him properly; he doesn’t want to move away enough for that. He just sinks fully into the heat of Thor’s body, feels him squeezing and clenching around his cock, and stays like that — bare movements of his hips as he presses close to Thor and kisses him long and deep, like he’s drinking from his mouth. Loki puts his hand on Thor’s chest, palms the rapid thumping of his heart, reaches up to touch the bob of his throat as he swallows against Loki’s mouth. One moment he’s enjoying having Thor bound under him, waiting for his touch; the next, the thought that he can’t have Thor’s hands on him in turn is like a knife to the gut. He releases Thor’s arms the minute he thinks it. 

Instantly, Thor’s hands are on him: cupping Loki’s face and sliding into his hair, pulling him closer so he can get impossibly deeper into his mouth. It isn’t even kissing, what they’re doing anymore; just a raw, wet press of mouths and ragged breathing. 

Thor comes again, in Loki’s hand and between their stomachs. Loki follows him right over the edge, pulling out at the last second so he can spill on Thor’s stomach and softening cock. The sight of it sends a wave of lust through him, so strong it makes his gut cramp and another pulse of come dribble from his cock. 

Loki collapses on the bed next to Thor and tries to catch his breath, putting his head down in the curve of Thor’s arm. The press of their slick flesh is sticky, but not unpleasant; the raw, rich scent of sweat and come makes his head spin. 

“ _Now_ you may go about your business,” Loki says. Even to his own ears, the satisfaction in his voice is cream-thick. 

Thor laughs, a wrung-out, breathless sound. “Shall I?” he says. “Like this?”

Loki runs a fingertip up Thor’s slick stomach, and sucks it into his mouth. “If I had my way,” he says, eyes half-lidded. 

Thor shakes his head, amusement lining his face. The curve of his smile softens away into something more pensive after a moment. He lies there in a boneless sprawl; Loki has exhausted him, a feat to take pride in. Then, too, there is the accomplishment of his initial aim: like this, Thor has no energy to draw up any of his pretences. There is none of the forced certainty, the kingly resilience Thor has armored himself in these past days. He is entirely naked. 

Loki could clean the both of them with a simple gesture. He calls a damp cloth to his hand instead, finding he wants the motions of it: Thor inhales as Loki wipes his stomach down, and exhales when he spreads Thor’s thighs and carefully cleans his cock. With each stroke of Loki’s hand, Thor’s breathing slows a little more. Loki pretends he hasn’t noticed that the trembling in Thor’s limbs hasn’t yet abated. When he finishes, they’re both clean of come and sweat, though some of the scent still lingers. Loki will leave it; he likes the thought of discerning noses knowing what their king has been up to, and with whom. 

Loki snaps the cloth away, and puts his head back down on Thor’s arm. “You’re doing alright,” he says, after a minute.

“Am I?” Thor says, eye fixed on the ceiling. 

Loki considers it carefully. “Well,” he says thoughtfully. “You _could_ put my statue back up.”

Thor snorts, and then starts laughing. He covers his face with one hand and keeps laughing.

Loki studies him up close, noting the glimpses he gets of the faint lines around Thor’s mouth and between his brows. When they were young, they thought they would be young and unspoiled forever. When they were young, Loki would have given anything to see self-doubt in Thor’s eyes, to watch him stumble and learn his fallibility. Now that it has happened, he finds it makes him oddly angry — at the world which has taught Thor cruel lessons, and at Thor himself, for waking a protectiveness in Loki’s breast he’d thought long gone, and himself safer for it. 

“Father would be proud of you,” Loki says. It's a strange feeling, to see a spider-web crack before him and shatter it open not to hurt, but to heal. 

Thor leaves his hand over his face for a long moment, and then draws it away. His eye, when he looks at Loki, is very bright. Loki watches him and keeps watching as Thor _lets_ him; lets him witness his grief, pent-up and denied and angrier for it. 

Loki’s own grief for their father is a more complicated, twisted thing. He will have to face it later, after he has drawn the poison from it. Perhaps then it will be his head on Thor’s shoulder; but for now, he is content to move them so that Thor can lean on him, turning his face into the curve of Loki’s neck and waiting for his breathing to calm. 

 

*

 

Eventually, Thor really does have to leave. His face is dry, and Loki has run a cool fingertip around his eye to ease the swelling. He looks tired, but settled — no longer so rigid he might shatter at the first blow, Loki notes with satisfaction. 

Loki lounges back on the bed, watching Thor dress. It's nearly as enticing a sight as watching it in reverse, curse him; but then, the way his hand lingers over the bruises and scratches on his shoulders and thighs doesn't help. 

In front of the mirror, Thor fits the eyepatch to his socket. He turns to look at Loki when he's done; there's a subtle expectancy to the tilt of his head, as if he can hear the spin of Loki’s thoughts. 

“Will you trust me again tomorrow?” Loki says. His voice and his face are glass-smooth, and most likely as transparent. 

Slowly, Thor smiles. “You'll have to ask me tomorrow.” He starts walking backward toward the door, never taking his eye off Loki. 

“And the next day?” Loki says, as Thor opens the door. His traitorous heart flutters on bird-wings in his chest. 

“And every day that follows,” Thor says, and closes the door on Loki’s smile, tearing free at last.


End file.
